Skin In The Game: TrailSkin And The Dragon Slayers

Two Dragon's Back champions. One brutal week down the spine of Wales. And the lesson we built a whole brand around.

380km. 17,400m of ascent. Six days, back to back. Only 32% of starters finished in 2025. Dragon's Back Race, by the numbers, and exactly why your skin needs a plan as much as your legs do. 

In 2026, the Dragon's Back Race became part of the Ultra X - new ownership, same unforgiving route from Conwy Castle to Cardiff Castle, and nowhere to hide from the weather, the terrain, or your own preparation. 

We've got a bit of skin in this game too. TrailSkin is a proud partner of Ultra X and the  Dragon's Back Race, and it's fitting timing on more than one level. TrailSkin exists because of a night on the North Coast of Devon in 2021, more than 20 hours with soaked feet, watching every product we'd packed fail against weather that simply would not let up. 

Our products have been field-tested on the Snowdon range and the Brecon Beacons, the very same ground Dragon's Back crosses on its way from Conwy to Cardiff. Dragon's Back does to a whole field of runners, over six consecutive days, what we spent one race learning the hard way on our own feet, and refining on the exact mountains this race is built on. If there's one race that proves why we built this brand, it's this one. 

We've had two ambassadors stand on the top step of it. Hugh Chatfield, won it outright in 2023, in one of the hottest, most brutal editions in the race's history. Holly Wootten took over three hours off the women's course record in 2025, arriving in Cardiff as first woman and second overall - with TrailSkin in her drop bag the whole way. Their races were two years and a different set of conditions apart. Put them side by side, though, and they tell the same story: at Dragon's Back, your skin is running the race right alongside your legs. Ignore it, and it will end your week for you, champion or not 

Why This Race Goes For Your Skin First

Foot care sits right there on Dragon's Back's own list of what separates finishers from DNFs, alongside pacing and nutrition. In its tenth edition in 2025, only 32% of starters made it the full six days. That's not down to legs alone.

Friction is the silent thief of mileage. It happens when the kinetic energy of your stride translates into shear force between the layers of your skin. Friction is the surface-level rubbing you feel as chafing, but shear is the more insidious part: the internal tearing motion where the top layers of skin shift in one direction while the deeper layers stay put. That tearing opens up a space, the space fills with fluid, and that's your blister.

Now add hours of Welsh bog water into the mix. Prolonged wet exposure softens and swells the outer layer of skin - maceration, in the clinical language - and macerated skin has nowhere near the shear tolerance of dry skin. The same stride, the same sock, the same shoe suddenly needs far less force to start that internal tearing, so blisters that would normally take a full day to form can show up in a fraction of the time. Leave that unmanaged in cold, wet conditions for long enough and you're looking at the same underlying process behind trench foot. In a race with daily cut-offs, that's not discomfort. That's a DNF.

Chafing isn't cosmetic, either - it's a repetitive mechanical injury. Skin-on-skin or skin-on-fabric friction, sweat, and hours of repeated motion strip the same spot of skin, day after day, on kit that never gets a full 24 hours to dry out or repair. On one stage that's uncomfortable. Stacked across six, it compounds fast.

And compromised feet don't stay a foot problem. Protect a blister and you change your gait; change your gait and you reload the ankle, the knee, the hip. A foot problem on Day 2 quietly becomes a knee problem by Day 4, nothing "went wrong" with the knee itself, it just inherited the compensation.

Then there's the weight on your back. Anyone racing Dragon's Back seriously carries more than they'd like - food, mandatory kit, extra layers for six days of Welsh weather roulette. More weight means more pressure and friction at the shoulders, hips and lower back, for longer, day after day. Pack rash is as real a threat to your race as a blister.

This is exactly the terrain our Anti-Chafe Salve, TrailSkin Trench Foot Cream and Revival Foot Balm were built for. Not general wellness. This.

Hugh Chatfield, 2023: The Win That Came Before We Could Help

image courtesy of Jamie Rutherford 

Hugh's 2023 win came in a heatwave - temperatures pushing 30°C, race organisers running emergency cool-off protocols mid-course, and a finish list that told its own story about the conditions that week. This was before TrailSkin existed in his kit list, and his own race report is honest about the toll that took even on a winning run: race medics taped a couple of his toes along the way, and by Day 5 - carrying more food than usual after running low the day before - pack rash from the extra weight on his back.

None of it stopped him winning. However, it's exactly the kind of low-grade, accumulating skin damage the race's own guidance warns costs other runners their race further down the field, the sort of thing a deliberate, twice-daily routine is built to prevent, rather than patch up after it's already started.

Hugh's a TrailSkin ambassador now, which means the next Dragon's Back story with his name on it should look a lot different from this one.

In Hugh's words:

"Looking back at 2023, the toes getting taped and the pack rash on Day 5 weren't the story I told afterwards, you don't dwell on that stuff when you've just won. But they were real, and they were entirely preventable. On day 5, I was carrying more food than I'd planned for after running low the day before, and that extra weight rubbing on wet kit for hours is exactly the kind of thing that catches up with you if you're not managing it.

I didn't have a proper skin routine that week. I had a race plan, a nutrition plan, a pacing plan, and feet and skin were something I dealt with reactively, at camp, if they became a problem.  I changed socks midway through most days, but by day 3 all my socks were wet. I cleaned my feet in rivers each night and I did apply some tape here and there.  This worked `ok`, but there`s some risk with tape crumpling up or further damaging the skin on removal and as I said I did get a blister by the end needing some help from the medics.

Compare that to how I train and race now: TrailSkin's Anti-Chafe Salve is just on rotation for every long run and every long bike ride, the same way I'd never leave the house without my kit list sorted. It's become one less thing to think about, which on a race like Dragon's Back is worth more than people realise. Decision fatigue is real by Day 4.

If I lined up at Conwy Castle again, the difference wouldn't be in how hard I raced. It'd be in what happens before the start and after each stage, TrailSkin Trench Foot Cream and Anti-Chafe Salve on before I even think about it being needed, not after the first hot spot shows up. Prevention, not damage control. That's the lesson six days of some of the best sections of the Cambrian Way taught me, and it's exactly what I wish I'd had in the routine back in 2023."

Holly Wootten, 2025: The Record-Breaker With A Plan

Two years later, Holly went into Dragon's Back with a very different relationship to foot care, partly from having recced the route once already, and partly from having learned, the hard way, on earlier stage races, what happens when you don't plan for it. Before TrailSkin, her own foot kit was a patchwork of athlete's foot cream, hand cream, and boxing glove steriliser spray, of all things. For 2025, she carried TrailSkin's Anti-Chafe Salve and TrailSkin Trench Foot Cream instead. TrailSkin Trench Foot Cream first, salve on top, to keep her feet from macerating in the bogs while staying protected regardless of what the weather threw at her.

The result: 50 hours, 46 minutes, six days and 16,400m of climbing, over three hours faster than the previous women's record. Second overall, ahead of every man on the course bar one.

Foot care wasn't separate from her race strategy - it was part of it. Every stage ended with the same routine: food first, then socks off, feet dried, checked, cleaned with baby wipes, and treated with Revival Foot Balm before loose socks and camp shoes went on. "It always lifts your spirits so much to finish a stage and see that your feet are ok," as Holly put it. One less variable to manage in a week where everything else is demanding attention too. The same balm did double duty at night, worked into tired feet as part of a wind-down ritual to help her relax before sleep.

It wasn't only her feet. The relentless rain that week found a new spot - the backs of her hands, chafed raw under her pole gloves. The Anti-Chafe Salve, taped over with Rock Tape, sorted that too, along with her ribs, sports bra line, and a patch of pack rash on her back from Day 3's cold-weather kit. Her own tip for anyone following in her footsteps: apply the salve everywhere you'd expect to chafe, then tape over it, you won't lose it to the rain, and you won't chafe underneath either.

In Holly's words:

"Going into Dragon's Back I wasn't a TrailSkin ambassador. I just knew I needed something better than my own homemade kit of athlete's foot cream, hand cream and whatever else I'd cobbled together over the years. I asked TrailSkin for the Anti-Chafe Salve and Trench Foot Cream mostly on trust, because the size was right for a drop bag and the ingredients made sense to me. Also it was heavily recommended to me by Hugh who was endlessly helpful with pre-Dragon's Back prep! I didn't expect it to end up doing quite as much work as it did, feet, ribs, pack rash, hands (hands?!? yes hands, a surprise issue instantly solved by TrailSkin), everything.

What actually convinced me was that by the end of Day 1, in laughably biblically wet conditions, my feet hadn't troubled me once and despite being sodden for the full 8+ hours. There was no sign of trenchfoot!!! No pack chafing to be seen! I'm not sure I could think of more testing conditions for anti-chafe and it fully held up! And that was the story for the week. No emergency reapplication, no rationing it in case I ran out, no wondering whether today was the day my feet would finally give out. And the knowledge that if anything new popped up, I could solve the issue and the skin would immediately start healing. Six days of camp admin is hard enough without adding "will my foot cream hold up in this rain" or  “what do I do if something new rubs” to the list. That calm, being able to make decisions without foot and skin problems clouding them, is genuinely underrated in a race this long.

Becoming an ambassador afterwards wasn't really a hard decision. I'd already run the experiment, in the worst conditions I could have asked for, and it worked. Now it's just part of how I prepare for anything from day-to-day training, single stage racing to multi-day: feet and food, every night, no exceptions. If you're taking on Dragon's Back yourself, don't wait until you're in the bogs on Day 2 to figure out your routine, sort it now, test it in training, and let it become boring before race week. Boring and routine is exactly what you want it to be when your brain is fried halfway through the week."

What They'd Both Tell You, Before Your Own Dragon's Back

• Foot care is race strategy, not admin. Make it a ritual. Dragon's Back's own guidance names "leaving foot problems too late" as one of the most common mistakes finishers make. Build it into your camp routine before the race, not during it.
• Apply before you need to, not after. Protection works by stopping friction before damage starts. Reapplying mid-stage, soaked and cold, is a much harder job than starting protected.
• Manage moisture and friction, together. In bog and stream conditions, keeping feet dry matters as much as reducing rubbing. Use a barrier cream and a salve, not one or the other.
• Think past your feet. Pack straps, waistbelts, pole gloves, bra lines, thighs — anywhere with repeated friction over six days is fair game. Apply everywhere you'd expect rubbing, not just where you've had problems before.
• Build a wind-down ritual. Feet and Food, then Kit and Sleep. Every night. It's not just physical maintenance. A calm routine at the end of a hard stage gets you to the next start line in better shape mentally as well as physically. 
• Test everything before race week. Whatever's in your drop bag on Day 1 should already be familiar from training, not something you're trying for the first time on the Cambrian Way.

Suffer Well. Prepare Properly.

The 2026 Dragon's Back Race runs 7–12 September, and TrailSkin will be there, whether you're chasing the Dragon over the full six days, taking on the new Dragon's Fire or Dragon's Tail, or building toward it through the wider Ultra X series, one thing hasn't changed: your skin is going to do as much work as your legs. Give it the preparation it deserves.

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